New hypothesis on 2-3 billion-year-old microfossils

2026-02-19

Until now, the often complex morphologies of microfossils found in Archean rock formations have been interpreted as signs of early controlled cellular differentiation of primitive bacteria, as also found in Cyanobacteria today. However, through growth experiments under simulated environmental conditions of the primordial oceans, the authors show that these are likely traces of cell wall-less protocells, that were not yet able to regulate their morphology by mechanisms of cell biology. The authors thus provide a new hypothesis to explain the morphology of virtually all microfossils found on Earth to date. The study has far-reaching implications for paleo- and geobiology and has just been published in the renowned journal eLife: https://elifesciences.org/articles/98637